If anyone can explain the recent rise of the Denver Broncos’ defense, they ought to be doing
something more important than following football.

It wasn’t inconceivable that Denver’s defense would improve after all it has been through, but
it’s undeniably illogical — more difficult to decipher than the true meaning of “Omaha!”

Despite losing five starters to injuries, the defense is playing at its best heading into a
Super Bowl showdown with the Seattle Seahawks.

The Seahawks happen to have the NFL’s top-ranked defense, a unit that forced three turnovers,
including the clinching interception, in the NFC championship game against San Francisco. They have
surrendered a league-low 16 points per playoff game.

But the Broncos are right behind them at 16.5.

Unlike their Super Bowl counterparts, there probably won’t be a ton of talk coming from Broncos
defenders this week leading up to Sunday’s game. It’s the offense, led by quarterback Peyton
Manning, that gets all the attention, including 10 pages of notes in Denver’s pre-Super Bowl news
release. The defense got 21/2 pages.

But that’s OK. The group simply hopes to continue to defy expectations, and reason.

“I think (it’s) just the mindset of getting better every day,” Broncos coach John Fox said. “
Statistically, we weren’t where we wanted to be. The staff, the players, everybody involved has
worked to make that happen.”

In their first 14 games, the Broncos allowed an average of 371.5 yards and 26.6 points. Over the
past four games, those figures have dropped to 268.5 and 15.

As Fox said, their success is a product of collaboration — young players, veterans, castoffs and
misfits coming together to form a cohesive unit whose whole is greater than the sum of its
parts.

Only one defensive starter in the AFC championship game was a first-round draft pick by the
Broncos: rookie defensive tackle Sylvester Williams, who played about half the snaps. (Reserve
defensive end Robert Ayers, a key member of the line rotation, also was a Broncos
first-rounder.)

Only four of the starters were even Denver draft picks. Five were veteran free agents, including
four signed last offseason. One was an undrafted free agent, and one was a trade acquisition.

That group held the New England Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady to 16 points in the AFC title
game, a week after they scored 43.

“It’s been a lot of hard work by those players,” Fox said. “Guys that have stepped in and
replaced pretty significant players.”

During the course of the season, the Broncos’ defense lost starters in safety Rahim Moore,
tackle Kevin Vickerson, linebacker Von Miller, end Derek Wolfe and cornerback Chris Harris.

The players who have stepped in, and stepped up, include end Shaun Phillips, who signed with the
Broncos for the bargain price of $1 million for one year. Phillips had 10 sacks this season after
recording 91/2 for AFC West-rival San Diego in 2012.

Defensive tackle Terrance Knighton toiled in the obscurity of Jacksonville for his first four
seasons. But former Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio, now the Broncos’ defensive coordinator, knew
Knighton’s work. Knighton became a sturdy run stuffer in his first season in Denver before
producing one of the biggest plays of the AFC championship game: a fourth-down sack of Brady late
in the third quarter.

But if one player embodies the defense’s development, it’s second-year linebacker Danny
Trevathan, a sixth-round draft pick who has gone from inconsistent to reliable this season.

Trevathan does not possess exceptional size or speed, yet he was one of only seven players in
the NFL to total 120 or more tackles and at least three interceptions.